


Unimaginable

by 0bviousLeigh



Series: Yuma is a Girl [10]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Family Feels, Gender or Sex Swap, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 07:40:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12008136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0bviousLeigh/pseuds/0bviousLeigh
Summary: There are moments that the words don’t reach, There is suffering too terrible to name...They are going through the unimaginable.





	Unimaginable

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my Zexal rewrite that I started for Zexal month on tumblr--an AU in which, first and foremost, Yuma is a girl. Always a girl, born with a V, the whole nine yards. Why? Because the idea wouldn't leave me alone. So [I drew it](http://rainbow-galaxy-supernova.tumblr.com/post/164290621451/zexal-month-day-13-yuma-day-something-ive-been), and I started writing it, and I ran with it.
> 
> This is my rewrite of episode 19 (titled after the song "It's Quiet Uptown" from the musical Hamilton).

“And don’t forget,” Kitano-sensei calls as the class puts away their bags, “This weekend is Parent’s day.”

Yuma doesn’t even think about it until she looks up and catches Kotori’s horrified glance, and Yuma finally realizes what’s been said.

Parent’s day. She actually _did_ forget.

Out in the hall, Tetsuo asks loudly about which family member will be coming to school, and Kotori shushes him, but Yuma shrugs.

“Whatever,” she says, “I just won’t come.”

It’s stupid anyway. They didn’t have parent’s day in elementary school, why start now? And why not call it Family day, make inclusive?

 _‘Because family is mom, dad, and child,’_ a voice hisses to Yuma.

“How are you going to get out of it?” Tetsuo asks.

“The less you know, the better,” Yuma says.

 

“Are we doing anything this weekend?” Yuma asks at dinner on Thursday night.

“I’ve got a reunion!” Grandma says happily. “I can’t wait to see my old friends.”

“I’m going to a wedding,” Akari says. “Grandma, is your reunion on Saturday?”

“It is,” Grandma says.

“So is my thing.” Akari glances at Yuma. “You gonna be okay by yourself?”

Yuma snorts. “Are you kidding? I can’t wait. I’m gonna go in your room and look through your porn stash.”

Akari turns bright red and lets out a shriek. “YUMA! Where do you get such ideas?!”

Yuma almost chokes. “Oh shit, I was kidding, do you actually have one?!”

“GRANDMA!” Akari screams as she puts Yuma in a headlock. Grandma is no help, she laughs hysterically as Yuma and Akari scuffle. Yuma is loving it.

But that night, Yuma lies awake in bed, thinking about her parents.

On Friday morning, Yuma looks like death warmed over, and she does nothing to hide it. Akari actually looks shocked when Yuma comes downstairs looking pale, disheveled, and rubbing her eyes.

“You okay?” She asks, her hand on Yuma’s forehead.

Yuma shrugs. “Didn’t sleep well,” she mumbles.

She heads to school, and she makes sure that her teachers see how horrible she looks. Kitano-sensei even pulls her aside and says that it’s okay if she doesn’t come the next day, and Yuma has to fight back a smirk. She’s done it, she’s gotten out of Parent’s day.

 

On Saturday, Yuma waits until she’s heard the door close before she comes down from the attic. She eats breakfast, packs a backpack with water and snacks, and she grabs her skateboard and heads to the park.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Astral asks as Yuma speeds down a sidewalk. “You seem tense.”

“I am tense,” Yuma mutters, “But I’ll get over it.”

She heads to a section of the park that has skating ramps, and she moves between them, her movements absentminded as she wonders what’s happening in her classroom. She doesn’t want to, but she imagines herself being there with her mom and dad. She imagines sitting proudly in her uniform, glancing back to wave at her parents. She imagines introducing her mom and dad to her teachers, bragging about all the cool stuff they do and the trips they’ve taken her on.

She imagines her dad, ruffling her hair and telling her how proud he is of her. Of course, if her parents were here, Yuma wouldn’t be a first-year student, she would be a second year. Maybe Ryoga would be there, too. Maybe Yuma could have talked her parents into being surrogates for him. Maybe they would have gone out to dinner after, and maybe they would have had a great time.

Yuma suddenly loses her balance on her board, and through some spectacular failure of her own making, the cord around her neck snaps and her key goes flying.

“Yuma!” Astral screams.

Yuma runs to the key and scoops it up, her heart hammering. It’s not broken, thank heaven. Yuma cradles the key to her chest.

“Be careful,” Astral snaps at her. “I don’t know what will happen to me if that breaks!”

Yuma snarls, “Oh shut up, it’s not all about you right now!” She stalks back to her board and skates away, suddenly done with the park for the day.

She ends up once again near the river, and she flings herself down on the grass and presses the key to her chest.

“I’m sorry,” Astral says quietly. Yuma glances at him, and he continues, “I didn’t mean to yell at you, I was worried.”

“No, I get it,” Yuma says. She holds the key between her fingers and looks it over, checking for cracks. “I’m sorry, too. I know this is important to you. It’s important to me, too.”

Astral sits next to Yuma, looking at the key. “How did you come to own it?”

Yuma smiles. “My dad gave it to me when I was eight. I was having a rough time, and we…we had a good talk, and then he gave me the key and told me about kattobingu for the first time.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was the one time Yuma didn’t want to go camping with her dad. He drove them out to the wilderness, hoisted their gear onto his back, and started walking. Yuma followed, but she complained the whole way. She stomped her feet, she shouted, she cried, she threw herself down on the ground and refused to move, but her dad didn’t stand for it.

“Up you get,” He said, hauling Yuma to her feet even as she went boneless. “You’re going to like this.”

“I wanna go home!” Yuma said.

“Nope, I’ve got a surprise for you,” dad told her. “Now come on, up and at ‘em.”

Yuma burst into tears, but her dad took her hand and walked her along. “Not much farther,” he said over her continued cries.

 

 

“So Yuma gets suspended from school, and goes camping with dad,” Akari said, frowning at her mother. “What exactly is going on here?”

Mirai sighed heavily. “Yuma is…having a hard time. Your father wants to talk to her about it, but she’s fighting him.”

“Okay, now I’m worried,” Akari said. “What happened to my baby sister?”

Mirai took Akari’s hands. “Yuma is being bullied at school. She got suspended because she fought back. She said something to me, something that worried me, and your father. Dad just wants her to be confident in herself.”

“What did she say?” Akari demanded.

 

 

Yuma sat with her arms around herself as dad set up camp. He built a fire and put up their tent, and he put a pot of water over the fire to boil. Then he sat next to Yuma and said, “Mom told me about what happened at school.”

Yuma rubbed tears from her eyes.

Dad continued, “She also said that when you got home, you covered yourself in white chalk, and then asked her how you could look like that forever.”

Yuma lowered her head and sobbed.

Dad scooped Yuma into his lap and patted her head. “Honey, what happened?”

Yuma sniffled. “I dueled them and I won, and they said…said it didn’t count, because I cheated. When I said I didn’t, they made fun of me. They asked if I even knew how to read. Then they…” she sobbed again and said, “They called me dirty. And it’s not the first time, either!” She buried her face in her dad’s chest and cried. “I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have hit them, but I was so mad!”

“Oh dear,” Dad said with a sigh. “You get that temper from your mom for sure.”

Yuma leaned back and stared at her dad. “Huh? Mom says I get it from you.”

Dad laughed. He stood up and swung Yuma up on his shoulders. The sun had set, and an endless blanket of stars lay over their heads. “Yuma, look at how beautiful it is right now.”

Yuma rubbed her eyes and looked at the sky. “It’s big,” she said, confused by the change of subject.

“Huge!” Her dad agreed. “And did you know that it’s endless? Space just goes on and on, and it’s full of secrets and hidden potential. It’s beautiful, just like you.”

“Me?!” Yuma squeaked.

“Of course!” Dad said. “You’re my beautiful little girl, full of potential and secret talent, waiting to burst forth from you someday. You’re a shining star, Yuma.”

“I don’t feel like a star,” Yuma said with a pout.

Dad lowered Yuma from his shoulders and back on to the ground. “Oh yes, that can sometimes happen. After all, the stars themselves don’t know that they’re stars. They don’t know that we look up at them and think that they’re beautiful. Just like you—” he poked Yuma’s chest gently, “Don’t see yourself the way I see you. Right now, you see yourself the way those boys at school do. Those boys filled your head with bad thoughts.”

Yuma sniffled. “Why did they do that?”

Dad sat down. “I suppose because they don’t understand you. Sometimes when people don’t understand something, they yell at it, or get afraid of it. They want to make that big thing they don’t understand something small and helpless, so they can control it.” He patted the ground next to him, and Yuma sat. “Let me ask you something,” Dad said, “What is your dream?”

That was easy. Yuma perked up instantly. “I wanna be a duel champion!” she cried.

“Aha!” Dad said. “Now that’s a good dream. And do you think you have what it takes to be champion?”

“Yes!” Yuma said happily.

Dad put his hand on Yuma’s shoulder. “Then that’s all that matters. When it comes to yourself, the only person whose thoughts matter are your own.”

He looked at the ground and drew two circles, and a bigger circle around them. “There are lots of worlds within our own. The biggest ones are positive world, and negative world.”

“Like magnets?” Yuma asked.

“Exactly,” dad said. “And those boys at school, they put your head in negative world. Your dream belongs in positive world, so you need to get back to positive world.”

“How?” Yuma asked.

Dad smiled at her. “By believing in yourself. And believing in yourself has nothing to do with the color of your skin, or how people feel about it. Believing in yourself comes from your heart. You know, people made fun of me for my skin too, when I was your age, and that made me very sad.”

“Are you still sad?” Yuma asked.

Her dad looked thoughtful. “I’m sad that those people wanted to make me someone smaller than I was. But I know who I am. I’m not dirty, or worse because I’m different. I’m happy with who I am, and I believe in myself.” He laughed. “Kattobingu!”

“Huh?” Yuma asked.

“Kattobingu,” her dad repeated. “It’s a word I made up, it means never give up and always believe in yourself, even if it seems like everything is against you. Nothing in this world is impossible Yuma, not if you believe in your dream.”

And for the first time in days, Yuma smiled.

“There’s my little star’s beautiful smile,” dad said. He reached into his pocket and took out a small bundle of tissue paper. “I want you to have this.” He put it in her hands, and she unwrapped it.

“Your key, daddy?!” Yuma gasped, staring down at the golden key. “Akari will be so jealous! Is it really okay?”

Dad winked. “Akari gets the car once she learns to drive, so you can have this. As long as you promise me—” he held out his pinky finger, “That you’ll remember kattobingu.”

Yuma linked her pinky finger around her dad’s. “I promise!”

 

* * *

 

 

“And then I asked him what his dream was,” Yuma says to Astral, “And he said it was to go to the edge of the world.” She snorts. “I laughed and said that was impossible, because the world is round and doesn’t have an edge. But I think he may have been on to something.” She grips the key tightly. “He was in a hiking accident. When rescuers found him, he had this key, and he said he saw another world.” Yuma draws her legs up to her chest and rests her chin on her knees. “I wonder if he found the edge of the world.”

“YUMA!”

Yuma’s going to have a heart attack one of these days. She flails, somehow manages to sit upright, and twists around to see her sister charging down the embankment.

“What are you doing here?” Yuma asks, and as soon as the words leave her mouth, her grandma follows Akari down to the river. “What are both of you doing here?”

“Why didn’t you tell us it was Family day?” Akari demands, stomping up to Yuma. “I had to find out from Tetsuko!”

Yuma feels a flash of annoyance. “It’s not Family day,” she snaps. “It’s Parent’s day, that’s what they call it.”

Akari’s face falls. “I still would have gone.”

“As would I,” Grandma says.

“Well you both had stuff to do,” Yuma says. She twists around to face the river and says loudly, “And I didn’t want to go anyway.”

Akari sighs and plops down in the grass next to Yuma. “Aw, kiddo…”

“Don’t ‘Aw kiddo’ me,” Yuma says gruffly.

Grandma sits on Yuma’s other side and takes her hand. “Your dad brought you here all the time, didn’t he?” She asks softly.

Yuma can feel Astral’s startled glance. Defensively, she says, “I come here a lot. I like it here. I feel closer to both of them here.”

Akari puts her hand on Yuma’s back. “You’re allowed to miss them, you know.”

Yuma feels tears sting her eyes, and she blinks them back. “We never talk about it,” she says quietly.

Akari looks at the river. “I think about him every time I get in that car,” she says. “The other day I saw my reflection in the corner of my eye and I jumped, ‘cause…”

“You thought it was mom?” Yuma offers, a lump in her throat. “Yeah, you look like her.”

“You’re both so much like them,” Grandma says. She smiles at them. “They would be proud of both of you.”

At that Yuma finally sobs. She twists away from her sister and grandma, and hides her face in her knees. “Not me,” she whimpers.

“Yes, you,” Akari says firmly. She wraps an arm around Yuma’s shoulders and tugs her close. “Look at how far you’ve come, look at how smart you are, how many people love you!”

Yuma doesn’t look up. “I still screwed up.”

Grandma hugs Yuma as well. “They would still love you. That’s what parents are for, to love their children no matter what. And that’s what extended family is for, too. Your sister and I will always love you, dear, and we will always be proud of you.”

Akari laughs, suddenly, “Grandma, do you remember when I broke my bedroom window?”

Grandma laughs. “Oh goodness, how could I forget?”

Yuma picks up her head. “You did what?”

Akari grins. “I was jumping on my bed, like I wasn’t supposed to do, and I tripped and in trying to catch myself, I slammed my hand against my window. Cracked the glass and scratched myself real good. But I didn’t want mom and dad to know, so I wore gloves to dinner and said my hands were cold. It didn’t work of course, because it hurt and I was scared. Mom yanked the gloves off me and I burst into tears…” Akari gets choked up and she clears her throat. “She just took me into the bathroom, cleaned up my hand, and got me all bandaged up, and she said that I should never be afraid to tell her and dad anything. She said that even if they did get mad, they would still love me, and being mad was temporary, but love was forever. And especially if I was hurt, all she and dad wanted to do was help me get better.” She wipes her eyes and laughs. “Aw crap, now I’m crying.”

“That’s how you need to remember your parents,” Grandma says. “They would have moved heaven and earth for you girls.”

Yuma rubs her eyes and smiles. “Yeah…yeah, you’re right.”

“Of course I am,” Grandma says. “Now, your dad taught you how to skip rocks here?”

“I didn’t say that,” Yuma says, “But he did…how did you know?”

“He told me,” Grandma says. “And I never did learn how to skip rocks, will you show me?”

Yuma leaps to her feet. “Absolutely!” She cries. “Let’s go!”

The three of them go down to the edge of the river, and Yuma ignores the signs that request people not go in the water. She kicks off her shoes and socks and steps into the shallow water, and after rolling her eyes, Akari joins. Grandma hoots with laughter and takes off her outer robe, following suit.

“I haven’t done this since I was a girl!” Grandma cries as she gathers her underskirt in her hands and swishes her feet in the water. “Of course…” she winks at the girls, “I was wearing much less.”

Yuma’s jaw drops. “You went skinny dipping?!”

“GRANDMA!” Akari screeches.

Astral watches the three of them as they skip rocks in the river, and he quietly says, “Observation fourteen, family loves family, and family is forever.”

**Author's Note:**

> One of my favorite headcanons for Zexal is that the Tsukumo family is mixed race. Through my own research I know that there's a significant population of South American/Japanese people, and that's how I picture Kazuma Tsukumo, that his father, Yuma's and Akari's grandfather and Haru's husband, was Brazilian and moved to Japan. I think it would be a lovely thing to have a canon mixed race YGO protagonist and show mixed race children that they're present and visible.


End file.
